Beautiful flowering trees outside the Rice County courthouse, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
I’VE NEVER TRAVELED to Washington, DC, thus never seen the masses of cherry blossoms. I’m quite certain I would love them. Flowering trees began blooming here about two weeks ago and I can’t get enough of their beauty.
A young tree outside the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour in Faribault blooms in late April. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2026)
Whether pink or white, the petals add an artistic and poetic touch to the landscape. It’s as if an artist meticulously brushed petals upon a tree. It’s as if a poet wrote lovely words upon apple and ornamental trees, petal by petal.
Against the backdrop of the Guild House at the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour, a flowering tree buds and blooms. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2026)
In poetry, every word counts. In art, every brush stroke matters. On a flowering tree, both create a canopy of loveliness.
Masses of flowers on a tree at the intersection of Third Avenue NW and Fifth Street NW, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo late April 2026)
I don’t paint. But I create with my camera and with words. I write poetry—poetry which has published on the pages of anthologies and literary journals, inspired artists and a musician, graced signs in public places.
At the intersection of First Avenue NW and Sixth Street NW in Faribault, a flowering tree graces a front yard. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 28, 2026)
And so I see poetry where others may not. A flowering tree is not simply a tree with flowers. It is a work of literary and visual art. It is a love letter. It is a painting. It is romance. It is a thousand stories. It is more than a tree blushing beauty into the landscape on a spring day.
Sunshine dapples a tree along Third Avenue NW, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo late April 2026)
In residential neighborhoods, in parks and in other spaces, flowering trees bloom poetic verse. Above. And in a carpet of petals upon the ground. I’m inspired to write: Apple blossoms fall/like kisses from their lips/teasing, tempting, tasting/not of promised, forbidden fruit/but of young love blooming.
The Guild House tree in bud and now bloom. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2026)
And so spring seems a time of young love. Of beginnings. Of feeling the heart beat faster.
Trees flower on the back side of Faribault’s Central Park bandshell which features murals honoring the life of Bishop Henry Whipple. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2026)
Yet spring also celebrates the seasoned love of many years, even decades, together. Love that has seen countless springs of flowering trees blushing beauty into the landscape. For my husband, Randy, and me, 44 years of married life marked on May 15.
Looking up at flowering treetops outside an office building along Third Avenue NW in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2026)
We walk beneath those trees, petals underfoot representing the poetry of days past and those above of poetry yet unwritten.
Lilacs bloom in North Alexander Park, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
EARLY MAY IN MINNESOTA always appears fresh, vibrant, new.
Biking toward the pedestrian bridge across the Straight River in Teepee Tonka Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
It’s as if our senses have reawakened from hibernation. The landscape looks especially lush. The sun feels warmer. Birdsong sounds louder. And the desire to get outdoors and take it all in runs strong.
A windmill spins at The Crabby Wren barn sale in Cannon City during a vintage shop hop. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
Mother’s Day weekend brought locals out in droves in the Faribault area, including me. Bikers, hikers, dog walkers, anglers, picnickers, shoppers at a vintage shop hop…
A frog caught along the Cannon River. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
The river drew many. A father and his young son fished at Two Rivers Park, using chicken skin coated in red Kool-Aid as bait. A young boy snagged a frog along the Cannon River in North Alexander Park where he fished with a friend. Anglers lined the river banks by the two dams near the Faribault Mill.
Six ducklings and their mother swim in the shallow water of the Straight River at Teepee Tonka Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
And some, like me, watched six fluffy ducklings swim against the current and traverse the rocky bed of the Straight River in Teepee Tonka Park as they tried to keep up with their mother. The word “cute” fit.
The Straight River and railroad bridge as photographed on a pedestrian bridge linking Teepee Tonka Park to River Bend Nature Center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
Everywhere Randy and I hiked on this splendid—and, yes, that word fits—Sunday, the essence of spring enveloped us. Wildflowers bloomed. Greenery enveloped us. The water of the Straight River flowed clear below us. Clouds puffed the blue sky.
Maple leaf seed pods against the blue May sky. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
The perfume of lilacs scented the air. Maple leaf seed pods dangled from branches. Maple leaves shadowed a tree trunk.
Teens in the tunnel. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
One of several cans of spray paint lying inside the tunnel. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
Tunnel graffiti. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
And in the shadows of a 442-foot long tunnel leading into River Bend Nature Center, several teens clustered, music blaring. We didn’t walk far enough to see what they were doing, but rather scanned the graffiti covering the walls of this 1937 Works Progress Administration project, built as a root cellar for the former Minnesota School and Colony (state hospital). I’m not informed enough to interpret the art, much of which includes obscene language and unidentifiable symbols. Yet, I found a patch of art that seemed devoid of anything offensive.
Randy climbs partially up a steep flight of stairs in the woods. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
We emerged from the coolness of the tunnel back into woods hugging a steep hill on one side of the trail, the river bottom on the other. A rail line rises high like a wall along a portion of the path. Only later, in another location, did I hear the blast of a train whistle.
Maple leaf shadows on a tree trunk along the Straight River. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
Even in the quiet of parks and trails, the background of city noise, the presence of people remains. Yet, it’s possible to shut out the distractions, to immerse one’s self in nature.
Nearly camouflaged in the rocky bed of the Straight River, a mama duck and her six babies. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2026)
I deeply appreciate the trail system, many parks and nature center within the city limits of Faribault. For a while on Mother’s Day afternoon, I observed just how much they are used, valued. To see people out and about like the young boys angling for fish and frogs, the families grilling in the park, the bikers pedaling, the dog owners walking their canines and more, reaffirms the importance of the outdoors to all of us, for our physical and mental well-being. To embrace spring after the season of winter feels good, oh, so good.
Wisconsin lilacs from Randy. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
IN 41 YEARS OF MARRIAGE, Randy and I have always been together on our wedding anniversary. But this May 15, he was 583 miles away in Lafayette, Indiana. Monday didn’t feel at all like a celebratory day with my husband gone. But I understood. He left southern Minnesota on Friday to attend our son’s graduation with a master’s of science degree from Purdue University. My vestibular neuronitis symptoms made travel and attending the Sunday evening commencement unmanageable. This was one of those moments in life when I experienced profound disappointment.
And so our anniversary passed on Monday with a phone call and loving text messages exchanged. I knew Randy would be home the next day, which was a gift in itself.
When he rolled into the driveway at 1:15 pm Tuesday after an overnight stay with our daughter and her husband in Madison, Wisconsin, my heart filled with gratitude for his safe return and overflowed with love in his presence. One long embrace later, and we were unpacking the van.
This May that story began in Madison, 271 miles to the southeast of Faribault, about a half-way point to Lafayette. When Randy stayed with Miranda and John en route to Indiana, he noticed lilacs blooming on the next-door neighbor’s bush. So on the return trip and his second overnight stay, he remembered those lilacs, asked for permission to take some and then cut two generous branches. John found a vase. Randy added water and then the lovely lilacs.
Some 4.5 hours later, Randy was pulling that clutch of lilacs from the van. I smashed the woody ends with a hammer for better water intake, added more water to the vase and then set the bouquet on a vintage chest of drawers. Soon the heady scent perfumed our living room.
Now each time I pass those lilacs, breathe in their intoxicating sweetness, I think of my dear dear husband. I think of his love for me and me for him. And I think of how something as seemingly simple as a bouquet of lilacs gathered in a Madison yard bring me such joy. Randy’s unexpected gift compensated for his absence on our 41st wedding anniversary. I feel so loved and cherished.
Thank you, Randy, for your thoughtfulness and love.
That string of four words defines May in Minnesota. In the past several weeks, I’ve watched buds form on trees, then unfurl into a canopy of mostly green. But also other hues.
Until you’ve lived through a cold and snowy winter like we did, I doubt you can fully appreciate the magnificence of this season, of viewing these days like a child at play.
The green of spring appears brilliant. Intense. An incomparable green that locks my eyes onto a lush landscape.
I almost can’t stop looking, taking it all in. This spring. This denotes the season of hope and new life, of following roads that lead to the promise of better days ahead.
THESE ARE GLORIOUS DAYS in Minnesota. This May. This month when the landscape morphs from greys and browns into the vibrant greens of spring.
Leaves unfurl a canopy of green.
Lawns grow lush and sprout crops of dandelions.
Tulips pop bold colors like exclamation marks in flowerbeds.
Coiled fiddleheads unwind into feathery ferns dancing in cool spring breezes.
Bleeding hearts awaken, pushing new growth from stems dangling dozens of pink hearts. Hearts of love and hope and the beating of spring. All of this I see as if for the first time, although 60 springs have passed since I was born a Minnesotan.
In the countryside, I watch a blue green Ford pick-up truck tool along an Interstate frontage road between strips of greening road ditches.
I observe, too, farmers working the land. Soon shoots of green will emerge from black soil as corn and soybean seeds erupt in new growth.
This is the season of newness in Minnesota, when anything seems possible. And perhaps it is.
TELL ME: How do you view and react to spring, wherever you may live?
THE FIRST FLOWERS of spring always draw me close with my camera to bend and crouch and ponder how I might photograph buds and/or petals in a way that seems anything but ordinary.
I study buds clasped so tight I wonder how they will ever release. I marvel in delicate petals and the green of leaves and stems and in coiled fiddleheads.
Bleeding hearts
Every spring flower, from the first jolts of lemon-hued daffodils to the vibrant red and yellow tulips and now the pink of dainty bleeding hearts and the lavender of long-stemmed waving allium, pulls me close. Yes, even the dandelions.
A dandelion gone to seed.
As we transition into May in Minnesota, I consider the annuals I will pot, the seeds I will sow in flower beds and the perennials yet to bloom in the heat and humidity of long summer days.
This truly is the time of year when all seems brighter and greener and, oh, so full of promise.
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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